The Nintendo Switch was just released (did you catch our editor Dec on GameStop Ireland’s Snapchat?) and we can’t help but think of our earliest Nintendo memories.
Every gamer remembers their first encounter with Nintendo. Whether you were trying your hardest to kick ass on Rainbow Road or fighting to reassemble the Triforce of Wisdom, you know the magic a good game can create. This week on Inner Geek, David,Alice and Declan talk about their earliest Nintendo memories!
DAVID
I have a pretty abysmal memory, as any of my friends could tell you, but one of the few memories that has always stayed rooted in my brain just so happens to be my earliest memory of Nintendo. I was seven or eight years old, we were round at my aunt and uncle’s house on Boxing Day. My cousin, who was about ten years older than I, had just gotten a Nintendo 64. While the adults were downstairs talking about taxes or something, I was upstairs with my blissful childhood ignorance spending a few hours with the N64. I can’t remember much of what I played, honestly; I know I played a few games but the only one I can r
emember is Super Mario 64.
However, I was a very easily entertained – and bad at games – child. So I think I spent somewhere between 3
0 and 60 minutes just firing myself out of a cannon over and over trying to land on an island. I’m better than that now, I promise. Eventually, I managed to land on the island and moved on to my next challenge; by which I mean my cousin finished a few levels quickly so I could mess around with a new one. The next hurdle I had chosen for myself was a tricky one, the giant penguin race in Cool, Cool Mountain.
Now, you may be thinking “This idiot child took over half an hour to land on a floating island, there’s no way he beat the Big Penguin”. Well let me tell you something buddy, you are absolutely 100% correct. It’s been so long that I’m not sure I even made it to the end that night. Despite my ridiculously bad performance, it was the sta
rt of a lifelong hobby. A few months later my brother got a PlayStation 1 and I would sneak downstairs to play early on weekends and got more and more into games from then. Good times.
ALICE
What were my earliest Nintendo memories? Well, that would be my first Nintendo console, the GameBoy Advance. I can’t remember the exact time I got it but I think it was shortly after its release, meaning I would’ve only been about… five years old. That can’t be right, can it!?
There’s very little I remember about my childhood but the console is one of them. My sister and I both got one at the same time. She got the purple model and I got a black one. We also got those Gamester bags and accessory kits with them. The bag was handy but the straps that came with them didn’t last very long on either of the bags. The accessories included a four way multiplayer cable and an attachable light. Ye,s this was before the times of backlit screens on our games. The light was rarely used but it was still an amusing piece of gear, even if its effectiveness was questionable.
I couldn’t tell you with absolute certainty what my first game for the system was, but if I was to hazard a guess, I think it might have been Scooby Doo and The Cyber Chase. I can’t really remember too many of the earlier games I had, though I can remember some of the later titles for it. Mostly the Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon games. Other than those, I remember trying a friend’s copy of a Medabots game which was SUCH a grind at the later stages.
Conveniently the original DS had a slot for GBA games (meaning I could still play them with a decent screen, hooray!) It was sort of necessary to have one too unless you wanted a gaping hole in the console. Of course, that was changed in later iterations until it was completely removed.
It was released almost 16 years ago… I don’t know how I feel about this. Where does the time go?
DECLAN
My first Nintendo memory isn’t of a particular game or character. I actually bought and paid for my first console all by myself when I was 7 years old. I think I first encountered the Super Nintendo in a magazine. In my house we always had gaming consoles, I cut my gaming teeth on the likes of the Accomodore 64 and the Amiga but nothing could compare to this small grey plastic box.
I put my pennies and pounds aside for it. That same year I’d be making my First Communion and I used the money I got from family and friends to push my savings over the line and buy my very own SNES. It was in the Limerick Crescent Shopping Centre and I remember my parents let me hand over the money to man working the register my self. The box was huge because I’d also picked up the Super Scope.
Evenings after school and weekends suddenly were a hell of a lot more fun. From here on out my love for video games would only continue to grow and I’d spend most of formative years as a diehard Nintendo fanboy! Asking Santa for the N64 and a small TV, sharing the present with my younger brother; completing Smash Bros. before the Christmas holidays were up and making our own rules and mini-games up! Begging my Mom for the day off school on the release of the Gamecube and spending hours playing Sonic Heroes.
24 years later and I’ve just picked up the Nintendo Switch all by myself again. While my taste in gaming and consoles may have become more diversify, there’s no doubt that I’m still a Nintendo fan at heart.
What are your earliest Nintendo memories? Let us know in the comments!
